Lick Observatory is located on 4200' Mt. Hamilton in the Diablo Range, east of San Jose, California. Largest among its nine research-grade telescopes is the Shane 3-meter Reflector, active since 1960. The 3-meter is in operation every clear night of the year, used by many different astronomers from within the UC system for a variety of projects ranging from observations of our solar system to distant galaxies. UC astronomers, using the telescopes on Mt. Hamilton have contributed to virtually every area of optical and infrared astronomy.
 

Photo: Lick Observatory at dusk.

Lick is a leg of Around the World in 80 Telescopes tour: Click to play; click  (lower right) to view video full screen Next stop: CHARA (Mount Wilson) (previous stop: Kitt Peak)

Lick is part of a larger UC entity, the University of California Observatories/Lick Observatory (UCO/Lick), a Multi-Campus Research Unit (MRU) headquartered at UC Santa Cruz. In addition to operating Lick, UCO/Lick is a managing partner of the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawai'i, supports the Center for Adaptive Optics at UC Santa Cruz, and the Infrared Imaging Detector Laboratory at UC Los Angeles. UCO's Santa Cruz headquarters also houses an extensive technical facility for the development of astronomical instrumentation.

Lick Observatory's newest telescope is the Automated Planet Finder (APF), also known as RPF (Rocky Planet Finder), to be commissioned in 2009.

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